


Constant as a Northern Star

by someblazingstar



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-03 00:42:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/someblazingstar/pseuds/someblazingstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel doesn't talk, just looks at him with those eyes that always look like they've beheld glory and never seen a thing such as him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Constant as a Northern Star

It doesn't take Dean too long to catch on that the prickle he gets at the back of his neck sometimes, that little tingle of being watched, is a real thing, not his imagination. Much as he sometimes thinks half the things he sees are in his head, his daddy didn't raise him to not notice things, at least not the kind of things that lurk in the dark. And this is that, something that looms, a shape his eyes can almost trace when he wakes up panicked in the middle of the night, but when he squints there's nothing solid there, no telltale deeper black against the black of a nighttime room.

He puts up with it for a while, the obvious conclusion having worked itself out almost immediately, but after a time he gets tired of being watched even when he knows that what's watching is benign. At a certain point the attention just makes him want to hum "Every Breath You Take" to himself, and he fucking hates Sting, so that has to stop.

It's not hard to ditch Sam one night, a fact that Dean can't let himself think too hard about or it'll hit like a knife to the gut again. Since Hell everything goes over Sam's head, distracted or focused, Dean can't tell. Probably the latter. Sam got like this before Stanford, too, same blank eyes that didn't see Dean or Dad, not really. Too busy seeing some triumphant future that Dean's no part of, and Dean knows he's being bitter, needs to get out to get away from that, too.

"Getting a beer, don't wait up," he says, leaving Sam staring at his laptop, waving him off vaguely as he goes. Knows Sam thinks he's after booze and tail, or hopes he does, hopes Sam still thinks of him that way. Thinks what he's thought before, maybe if he acts like his old self enough, fakes it all, Sam will stop seeing the cracks. He knows Sam thinks he's busted beyond repair, now, hates that he can't say for sure that Sam's wrong.

Goes out, drives for a while. All roads in this part of the country look the same after long enough, and it's been decades he's seen them pass outside his windows. Stops finally at some rundown place reminds him a bit of Harvelle's, makes him miss those girls like an ache in his side. Orders a beer, doesn't specify or care what kind, takes his glass of cold yellow probably piss-tasting cheap shit to the darkest corner. Resists the urge to watch the pool game too closely, doesn't want to get sucked in, has things to think about other than parting dumbasses in baseball hats from their daddies' money.

Takes a drink. Fuck. "I know you're there," he says, quiet, hand on the grounding cold of his glass, other on the mark that still feels like it's burning, aching under his rolled-up sleeve.

"I wasn't so foolish as to think I'd go unnoticed," Castiel says. "You're too good at your job for that."

Dean shrugs. "Gonna tell me why you're following me around like a bad smell?"

Castiel doesn't talk, just looks at him with those eyes that always look like they've beheld glory and never seen a thing such as him. No one's ever looked at him like that and really meant it, no girl surely, not even Sam, like he's more than he knows he is. It gives him the same itchy feeling as before when he was being watched as he slept.

He feels heavy, weighted with something like inevitability. The nervous something that tends to sit in the pit of his stomach when Castiel's around's stronger now, as Castiel reaches out slow, like trying not to scare him, fits his fingers over Dean's where they rest over the scarred shapes of fingers on his arm.

"Dean," he says, finally. Guy's never had too much to say, keeps things short and sweet as a rule it seems, but Dean doesn't think he's ever seen him actually _at a loss_ before. Feels that way now, though.

"Keeping an eye on me like this, that you following God's orders? Probably think I can't take care of myself now," he says. _Like Sammy_ is what he's thinking, but he leaves that part out, knows it hangs unspoken in the air. Castiel's not what Dean would call savvy but he's not stupid, either.

"No one ordered me to look after you this way," Castiel says, and his hand squeezes, pulls Dean's away from his arm and down. Dean resists the urge to flinch as he watches their fingers entwined on the table in front of them. First thought is that it wouldn't do to give people the wrong impression, though he's sure no one's watching. He can fight when he has to, no problem, but doesn't like to bring on trouble unnecessarily, wouldn't want to now, anyway. Possibility of getting in a bar fight now makes him just feel tired.

Second thought's a little more complicated than that, confused jumble that's popped into his head before, when Cas' been around and looked at him too long. Watched him with something in his eyes that Dean would be sure of if it were anyone else in the world. Angels don't look at people like that, though, surely. Gotta be something else, all just imagined, maybe.

"Then what?" Dean says. Still looks at their hands, Castiel's fingers stroking, stroking across his. Din of a dingy bar all around, thick stale air, sour beer-taste in his mouth all desert-dry.

Castiel says nothing. Looks at their hands. Dean breathes, stays silent for a while, too.


End file.
